The idea behind 'ivi' is to create ethical leather accessories for people who love wearing leather and also love making environmentally aware choices. ivi made designs are created to bring back simplicity and practicality into our everyday objects.

The label has been founded by Ivett Dodd (Ivi) in 2016.

Ivi studied fashion design at Fashion Masters in Melbourne and won the Emerging Young Designer of the year title at the Australian Fashion Awards with her graduation collection. Her work has been exhibited at environmentally conscious fashion events in Melbourne, Hungary and as part of Berlin Fashion week.

MADE IN AUSTRALIA

We are based in Tasmania and have an in-house studio where we craft all our goods.

Having a local space to make things helps us lower our environmental footprint because we don't have to ship our products around the globe during manufacturing

Kangraoo leather

We only use kangaroo leather, which is due to environmental but also functional design considerations. Kangaroo leather is the most durable leather that exists. It a has a unique structure, because the kangaroos don’t have sweat glands which makes the leather a lot thinner then cow hide for example but ten times stronger. It has the most incredible surface texture, due to the wild roaming life-style of the kangaroos.

Kangaroos are native to Australia and can easily multiply their numbers in a short amount of time. As a consequence they often end up extremely overpopulated, which means that they starve and also can potentially destroy their surrounding eco-systems.

The leather we use is certified by the Department of Environment and Heritage, a government body that closely monitors the populations and ensures that only the male kangaroos are targeted, and are not caused unnecessary suffering.

HAND MADE

Making is part of our design philosophy. Instead of coming up with a design idea and sending it off to a faraway land for it to be turned into reality we consider designing and making part of the same process where one can’t exist without the other.

Making things by hand makes each object that leaves our studio unique.

Often having a human touch means we can reduce wastage during production, this is especially true when it comes to cutting leather by hand versus laser cutting which produces more off-cuts.

LOCALLY SOURCED MATERIALS

In some cases where there is no industry in Australia for the manufacturing, for example threads and small metal parts we still purchase these from local suppliers.

free of chemicals and plastic

Leather tanning is one of the most environmentally hazardous processes that exist in the fashion industry today. Chrome tanning is done with chemicals, whereas vegetable tanning is the ancient method of leather tanning and only uses plant-based materials. Needless to say we only work with the vegetable tanned variety.